Secular Funeral

While I plan on becoming immortal in 2045, there is always an outside chance that I could die before then. I’ll be 73 in 2045 and anything could happen between now and then. I could be killed in auto accident on the way home today. note to self: click on “publish” before leaving work today. If that happens, I want to make it clear to [all three of] my readers that I want a secular funeral.

It has always unnerved me to go the funeral of a, shall we say, less than religious person and find it to be little more than a church service held over their dead body. Which, by the way, is likely the only way they would have attended a church service. I’ve said before that I support organized religion, but I don’t necessarily buy what they’re selling. After I’m gone, I don’t want anyone living their life in the false hope of meeting me again on some far distant shore. I fully accept that we live in an 11 dimensional universe, and that we only observe 4 dimensions. So I won’t discount the limited probability that human consciousness may somehow be able to exist in a non-corporeal trans-dimensional form, but I’ve never heard that mentioned at a funeral.

So if I bite it before downloading my mind into an android, here’s what I want in the days following. First, there needs to be a wake. Not a sad-ass-everybody-crying wake, but a proper drunken celebration of my life. There should be lots of food and alcohol. There should be stories, both funny and sad. At this time everyone should remember that had I been invited to this party, I wouldn’t have shown up, because, let’s face it, I’m a little anti-social. The party should be held at someone’s house so my body doesn’t have to be there.

Next, the funeral. Rather than a preacher, I’d like to be eulogized by someone who knew me. (In order to know me, the eulogist must have either gotten drunk with me or shared an adverse experience with me.) We go to church and we have a preacher, but he doesn’t know me from Adam’s off ox. When we joined the church, he introduced us as “the Pratts” even though our name was written on a paper he had in his hand. I guess no one ever said religion is the opiate of the literate. If I were a proper religious person, I’d suspect this is some sort of game the devil plays, where you can’t be saved if the preacher says your name incorrectly. I’ve known, and even been close friends with a few preachers in my life. If one of them shows up and wants to do the eulogy, make them read this first.

There should be music, but no hymns. Music is such a big piece of the human experience, but you usually get just three songs at a funeral. Here are my three songs. For the Processional, “Never Been To Spain” (Elvis, from An Afternoon in the Garden). For the Hymn of Meditation,”Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” (Willie Nelson, from Red Headed Stranger). And for the Recessional, “That’s Life” (Frank Sinatra, from That’s Life). These are not my desert island top three favorite songs. That’s a post for another day. This is just my funerary pick.

Finally, what to do with my remains… I don’t care. I have absolutely no investment in what to do with my body once my brain has been deactivated. Bury it, cremate it, defile it, give it science. Do whatever is the most expeditious thing.

Hopefully this will be the most useless thing I’ve ever written. I’ll be sure and delete this entry when I’m a robot.